Fall Away
by 16years
Summary: You can't lie to your therapist, Kate. He's bound to see through you. Jack/Kate.


Gift for Kayleigh... hope you like it doll :) I don't own anything at all...

**Fall Away**

_You can't lie to your therapist, Kate. He's bound to see through you. Jack/Kate. _

Chapter 1

"What else to do you remember?" He pressed, leaning against the armchair. Kate's forehead creased as she tried to think back, tears stinging her eyes.

"I came out from under the bed and cleaned my face up. And then I went to check my mom." Salt water burned her cheeks as the air conditioning blew against her face. "He'd hurt her so bad. The worst I'd ever seen her, there were marks- everywhere. And then I went back to bed. I went back to my room and went to sleep…"

Jack watched as Kate broke off, closing down on him again; something he was all too familiar with. She scraped her hair back into a messy bun at the back of her head and scrubbed at her red eyes fiercely.

"That's it." She breathed. "That's all that happened."

"Is it?"

"Yes." She insisted, taking a deep shaky breath and shutting her eyes for a moment. "That's it. That's all."

"Okay… well you did really well." He smiled, watching her roll her eyes slightly. "How do you feel now?"

"Tired. But relieved. Kind of." Kate breathed, a small smile flickering at her mouth. "I'm done today."

"Yeah you are. Same time next week, yeah?"

"Yep." She smiled, standing up and running her hands over her shirt to smooth the creases out. "Thanks." He looked down and handed her a tissue, which she took gratefully, drying the last of the tears up and dabbing at her pink green eyes. "I don't normally… do this."

"I know." Jack agreed, smiling reassuringly. "But there's nothing wrong with crying, so… even if you did. It's better to let it out then keep it all inside." Kate looked up at him, her smile a little more forced this time.

"Bye Mr. Shephard."

"Bye Kate." He smiled, reaching down for his notebook on the floor. "Oh, and please ring me if you need to. You've got my number; you know I'm available for whenever you need to talk, okay?"

Jack watched as the young woman pulled her bag onto her shoulder, nodding wistfully and left the dimly lit room. He glanced at his watch, which showed it was nearly five. They'd gone way past the two hour mark. Moving over to his desk, he put away the papers in his arms and opened the drapes. Out of the window was a large cityscape view of Los Angeles in all its glory; twinkling sunlight, glinting off the glass windows in surrounding buildings and if he looked carefully, he was sure he could see the smog covering it. Jack Shephard had grown up in LA and he had a love hate relationship with it. Sometimes he could only see the shimmering green sea, the familiar playgrounds and beautiful sunshine. But sometimes all he saw was seas of concrete, hard edged, dirty buildings and shallow, plastic women. That was also the same relationship he had with his clients. Jack had loved every single second of earning his PhD. Even the boring bits. Even the bits that nobody enjoyed. He had loved getting scholarships and getting accepted into numerous Ivy Leagues. He loved feeling _wanted._

But now he was sat in a gloomy office room, trying to figure out how he could get a woman terrified of remembering, _to _remember. Kate Austen had been the only person in a while to come to him with a real problem (the rest seemed to all be hysterical parents worried why their sixteen year old was wearing black eyeliner or smoking pot, or bored business people recovering from a midlife crisis, trying to repay the cost of a Ferrari and trying to grow their hair back) and Kate Austen, so far had been the only person he'd had real difficulty trying to get through to. He'd seen her for a little over three months now; she'd been referred to him after a doctor discovered the cuts on her arms and had panicked about her mental health. But it became clear to Jack, after meeting her, she had no obvious mental problems to speak of; she was just a young woman, coping with herself in a different way to everyone else.

At first, it had been his mission to help her overcome it. To help teach her better ways to channel her anger, confusion or hurt and together, they'd nearly done it. But after probing a little into her childhood, Jack had quickly discovered that self-harm was the least of her problems and it was then that the hard work had started. She had been adamant about being 'over it'. She'd insisted that it was in her past, that she'd forgotten, blocked out and that it didn't affect her anymore, but the marks on her arms clearly told him otherwise. They had made progress, sure. She'd kept clean for the past month, gradually she was telling him more and more about her past, but Jack knew she was holding something back. And as selfish as it sounded, he was disappointed in himself that he couldn't coax her into sharing it. He didn't go for the softly softly approach like some of his friends did with their clients; he used a gentle but direct way of talking, and it usually got more results. But not with Kate.

Jack was pulled out his train of thought by a bang on the door. He looked round, loosening his tie. Amy, the twenty eight year old, bright-red-head receptionist popped her head round the door, brandishing a piece of paper, her braids swinging wildly.

"Umm, Katie? I think that's her name, curly hair, just left, she said she was cancelling next week? I know she's done it before, so… did she tell you this time?"

"Her name's Kate, and no." Jack sighed, rubbing his temples tiredly. "She didn't tell me." He stood up and took the paper from her hand, looking down at it. "What's her telephone number? I might call her later, try and talk her round a little."

"She didn't leave it open." Amy said apologetically, pulling her black pencil skirt up over her knee a little and not so subtly angling it towards Jack. "Special request."

"Damnit. We shouldn't have that rule."

"I think it's kinda nice. It's like a step-up on patient confidentiality." Jack sniffed a response and picked up his briefcase.

"Well, I'm going home- and no, I'm not in tomorrow, so just leave everything in my mailbox." Amy stepped out of his way, as he went towards the door, still looking anxious. "And if Kate does call, for whatever reason… just… give her my number and tell her to give me a call. I've said it to her a hundred times, but she never listens."

"They never do." The woman laughed, leaving the paper on his desk. "See you Monday, Jack."

"See you Monday." And he left.

His house was hot and empty when he got back home. Marc had left a note on his coffee table with a rushed 'thanks' scribbled on it and the couch he had crashed out on, crumpled and messy. Leaving his bag at the door, Jack felt almost out of place. Everything was too big for one person, and he felt slightly disappointed that his best friend hadn't waited for him. Marc had come straight from Malibu, determined to go through Beverly Hills and onto Hollywood, too drunk to string a sentence together, asking if Jack wanted to join him. He'd long wanted to get out of California and apparently he was having one last week to get smashed and then leaving for Rhode Island. Apparently.

He switched the television on and poured himself a glass of orange juice, trying to switch from 'work mode' to 'home mode' without success. All he could think was that Kate had cancelled and Mrs. West was supposed to be coming in on Thursday so they could talk about her sister's favouritism and then the blonde nurse was supposed to be Monday to talk about her love life and Kate had cancelled and he had an assessment for Mr. and Mrs. Upper-Middle Class on their truanting teenager, _and Kate had cancelled_.

He felt a headache throbbing gently in the back of his head, and closed his eyes, wishing for a break. Did he have her number? He wondered suddenly. Did he? Hadn't he taken it once, early on in the sessions about the cutting? He stood up and went over to the drawer under the sink and rifled through crinkled pieces of paper. But even as Jack looked, he knew he wouldn't be able to call her, even if he did find it. She didn't want him to… She left her number closed at reception. But when his fingers closed around the little piece of blue notebook paper and he saw the name 'Kate Austen' scribbled across it, he had to sit down for a moment to argue with himself. It wasn't playing by the rules to call her, but she kept cancelling. He knew that after a while, if a client missed too many sessions they were often asked to find a new therapist. And while Jack didn't like to sound bigheaded, he hardly though she would open up to anybody else more then she had already to him.

With a sudden movement, he grabbed the phone and punched her numbers in, trying to do it quickly before he could doubt himself any more. The phone rang for so long, he was about to put it down, before she answered, her voice thick and muffled.

"Hello?"

"Kate?" He asked, "Kate, it's Jack… Jack Shephard." There was a pause. "From… session? Today?"

"Oh." She breathed, clearly taken aback. "I didn't… I didn't know you had my number, I thought-"

"The thing is, Kate." He interrupted, sitting down heavily. "I get that these sessions are tough for you… but, if you keep cancelling them… they're going to see it on the records. Sometimes they ask for you to be transferred to another therapist and I know you wouldn't want that. I don't want this to come across like I'm pressuring you… it's just that I don't want you to get a letter through saying you need to move on." There was yet another pause, as she tried to take everything he'd just said. He held his breath slightly, as he waited for her response.

"The thing is… I don't really- I don't want to carry on with the sessions." Kate said awkwardly.

"What? Why? You-"

"I just, I don't need it… I'm okay now. Really, I'm good. I worked through everything, I've realised things, I'm fine."

"You don't really sound it." He sighed. "I really, really think you should continue with these sessions, Kate. If they're too regular for you, then we could space them out a bit. It's just the cancelling that makes things difficult. Just… carry on with them, even if it feels like too much, it's doing you good, and-"

"I know, I know." She insisted. "Please, I'd just… I can't sleep, I can't… I can't keep going back into things that I… It's not good for me, I just want to stop, okay? Thank you for helping me with everything else, but…" Jack placed his fingers to his temples, an action he had done many times that day and tried to reason with her, flitting back into therapist mode.

"Okay, has something happened to make you feel like this? Or have you felt like this all along?"

"All along." Kate breathed down the receiver, her voice high and apologetic. "I'm sorry, I just… it's not good for me anymore…"

"How about-" Jack struggled to think of something, desperately racking his brains for a way to keep her in session. "Can we meet up?"

"What?" Jack knew meeting up at his house was entirely inappropriate and would probably make her feel on uneven ground, but wasn't sure if meeting at her house would make her feel like he was intruding.

"You and me, just for… ten minutes. Let me help. For the last time, if that's what you really want. Just let me talk to you for a few minutes. Over a coffee or something? At your house or… at a park?"

"A park? I don't… I don't know, I- guess…" He could hear her wavering, and crossed his fingers. There was a sigh. "For ten minutes. Just as a last time thing…"

Jack hastily agreed, and scribbled down the address of a park name she gave out, promising her that he would be there in twenty minutes, before grabbing his keys and running out to the car, praying he could change her mind.

_dear you look so lost, eyes are red and tears are shed,_

_this world you must've crossed,_

_she said - you don't know me, you don't even care, _

_she said - you don't know me and you don't wear my chains,_


End file.
